


thank the maker i'm good as dead

by kaijuburgers



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II
Genre: Angst, Blood and Injury, Blue Wraith Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Complicated Relationships, Hurt and a little comfort (as a treat), Lyrium Withdrawal, M/M, On the Run, Past Unrequited Crush, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-07
Updated: 2020-09-07
Packaged: 2021-03-05 00:29:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25385317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaijuburgers/pseuds/kaijuburgers
Summary: The trouble was that Carver didn’t know what 'wherever he pleased' meant. He didn’t know anything about what he wanted any more.-After Garrett ignited a war, Fenris left Kirkwall, and Carver followed him. He still doesn't quite know why.
Relationships: Fenris/Carver Hawke
Comments: 12
Kudos: 21
Collections: Black Emporium 2020





	thank the maker i'm good as dead

**Author's Note:**

  * For [notyourparadigm](https://archiveofourown.org/users/notyourparadigm/gifts).



> This fic was written for [The Black Emporium Exchange 2020](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/BlackEmporium2020)
> 
> (The tags on this one give all the major triggers, but I also wanna add that I have a short description of going cold turkey on lyrium that's based on my own experiences with substance withdrawl, which I know might hit a little too close to home for some)

Somewhere along the road to Markham, a blade had found its way in between the plates of Carver’s armor. In hindsight, it wasn’t too much of a surprise- the cheap half-plate Carver had traded for back in Ostwick didn’t provide as protection as his Templar armor had. It was a blessing that no blade had found its way there before.

They’d tried to attract as little attention as possible while travelling, tried to pass as just two faces amongst the many fleeing Kirkwall.  When the bandits had set down upon them they’d done it with no battleground tactics, their swordwork clumsy and simple. They’d obviously expected Carver and Fenris to be simple travellers, and that in itself was a good sign. It had been their mistake, the first few bandits falling quick and easy. Fenris and Carver’s blades worked so fast Carver barely had time to register them as people before they hit the ground. There’d only been one bandit left- an armored man in dark leathers welding a bastard sword, who’d looked at Carver with vengeance in his eyes. Carver had stood his ground, readied his blade in near ward guard position, sword angled down and back, ready for a rising cut. 

And then, all of a sudden, Carver had forgotten everything. He knew his blade was in his hand and he knew there must be a reason for that. He knew that he was covered in blood and mud and sweat, and that there must be a reason for that too. But beyond that, the world had seemed as if obscured by fog. When his attacker’s blade had hit him, sliding between the plates of his vambrace and gauntlet, it had taken Carver a few moments to realise what had happened. He’d been lying on the small of his back when he realised, attacker stood over him with sword raised, and for a second Carver thought that this was the end, that he was truly going to die here, down in the dirt in some unfamiliar land. And then he realised that Fenris was stood over him too, hand buried in the other man’s guts. Everything had been quiet, just for a second. The bandit had opened his mouth to try and scream, but the sound was so muffled by the dark blood pouring out of it that it sounded like a whimper instead. When the light vanished from his eyes, Fenris pulled his arm free and pushed the man’s body to the side with one motion and a wet tearing sound. If Carver hadn’t become used to abominations and battlefields, he thought with a grimace, he might have vomited at the sight and sound.

He tried to pull his weight off the ground, to get himself to his feet. He found he couldn’t, pain soaring through him. Fenris knelt down in the dirt next to him, pulling Carver’s weight onto his shoulders. The other bandits had faired no better than their companion and Carver could see where the shrubs had been stained red. He froze, and Fenris glared at him.

“We need to find shelter. You’re in no fighting shape.”

“It isn’t that bad,” Carver managed, and it was true, comparatively. The first time Carver had experienced lyrium withdrawl, it had been two -maybe three- weeks after Kirkwall, after he’d fled from his Order and his city at his older brother’s side. They’d left in too much of a hurry for Carver to take his stockpile of lyrium with him and both he and the rest of Garrett’s travelling companions had underestimated how intense Carver’s cravings would be. When it hit, Carver had no way to describe it other than it felt like he was dying, that he wished he was dead if he couldn’t have lyrium right that moment, and that if he could have a drop of lyrium he would happily die afterwards in exchange. It had hurt too much for his thoughts to be formed of words and instead they had been just a series of emotions, screeching and raging and burning him up from the inside. He found out later that those screeches had been external too, that Fenris had tried to hold him down until it passed, but that Garrett hadn’t been able to watch while they waited for that. He'd poured one of his lyrium potions down Carver’s throat instead. Compared to that withdrawl, forgetting himself in the middle of a fight was nothing.

“We need to tend to your wounds,” Fenris said, and that too was true.  The bandit's blade had slipped into Carver’s skin fast and even if he hadn’t been disoriented, he wouldn’t have felt much. But now it was starting to hurt, the pain in his arm somehow dull and burning all at once.  So Carver stopped protesting and let Fenris carry his weight as they trekked towards a house in the near distance, movement painfully slow.

As they got closer, Carver realised what he’d thought was a house was a barn. The door had been pulled from its hinges, leaning precariously against the door frame. When the barn stood new, the wood of the walls would have been an almost gleaming white but in the years it had stood here, refusing to die, they’d turned a dark cracked ashy brown.  Unease settled in the pit of Carver’s stomach as decade old memories of Lothering came flooding back. He and Fenris had had to hide in worse locations- on the road to Ostwick they’d had to shelter in the same spider infested cave for two days. But that cave hadn’t felt far too much like one of the homes that Carver had run from. 

Carver knew he and Fenris couldn’t afford to be picky. Sure, they  could have walked a little further, tried to find a village and beg the locals for a bed. But with that came risk, not only that the villagers would simply turn them over to the bandits or Templars or whatever other kind of military force held local power, but a risk that they wouldn’t. Carver would never forget the farmer who had offered them use of of a spare room a few days after they’d left Kirkwall. He’d never forget the way that cottage looked when it was ablaze, fire raging and curling around it until all that was left was a blackened skeleton twisting up into the sky and a dark thick dust that lingered in the air for days. And he’d never forget that when the Templars who had set the cottage alight came towards them, swords drawn and baying for his brother’s blood, he’d recognised their faces.

Carver pulled himself from his travelling companion’s arms, groaning as he dragged himself through the open doorway. Fenris followed him.

It took only a few steps until Carver collapsed against the barn wall, resting his weight on his good arm and trying to soften the impact as he lowered himself to the ground. Fenris knelt beside him, unbuckled his vambrace and gauntlet and slid them off. It had started to rain- a light drizzle that slowly turned into a downpour- as Fenris rummaged through their bags to find medical supplies. There wasn’t much- the days of carrying ready made poultices or potions long gone. But they had clean cloth, salt water, a little dried yarrow, and bandages, and that was something. Fenris had none of the gentleness that Anders had when he was healing, and Carver winced just as much at his tight grasp as he did at the sting of the salt water. Fenris grunted.

“This will be easier if you hold still.”

Carver was in no state to protest, so he held as still as he could. There was a loud pop as Fenris uncorked the vial of yarrow, Carver’s wound feeling more numb the moment the yarrow touched it. Another cloth was placed on top- this one pressed firmly down onto his arm- and the red stain on this one was smaller and less dark than it had been on the one before.

“We should bandage this up. And you,” Fenris said, unfurling a thin strip of woven cotton, “should take some lyrium.”

The bandages were wrapped thickly around Carver’s wrist, in an attempt to give his arm some kind of support, the end of Carver’s cloak torn off to create a makeshift sling. With a sinking feeling, Carver realised Fenris was right. Even if his symptoms weren’t too intense they would get worse, and it was easier to plug a leak than to build a dam. So he reached into his bags to find the vial of makeshift lyrium potion. 

Back in Kirkwall he and the other recruits had drunk their lyrium from a chalice with the face of Andraste, but this he’d made himself by grinding up the raw mineral and mixing it with the first bit of clean water he’d managed to find in weeks. Carver took the smallest sip, knowing there would be a time when the withdraw was worse and when he would need lyrium more desperately. He knew how he must look - wild expression and even wilder grown out hair- and it didn’t surprise him to find Fenris looking away.

Fenris hated watching when Carver took lyrium. That was something Carver both understood and hated- understood because he had seen the curls branded into Fenris’ skin many times over during the decade they’d known each other, hated because Fenris had to have known what joining the Order would have meant for Carver, and he had looked at Carver with approval anyway. Nobody else had done that- in fact when Carver had joined the Order, he’d been pretty certain that Garrett would never forgive him. The moment Garrett walked back into that hovel and seen Carver standing there in his Templar armor, tall and proud and daring Garrett to say something, his eyes had burned with white-hot fury. 

For a long time, that had been why Carver thought he had done it, to have something in his life that his brother had no say in, that was his choice and his alone. Their mother must have thought that was why he did it too because she’d begged him not to enlist, begged him not to turn his older brother in, begged him not to give into spite. Anders had stopped talking to him almost entirely. But Fenris had come to him with a bottle of wine and congratulations. There hadn’t been many words exchanged and conversation had been more than a little stiff, but that had been alright. Fenris had come to him with approval and in that moment, Carver had never been so certain he had made the right choice.

And yet here he was. Here they both were. Sheltering from the rain in some shitty barn in the middle of nowhere because they had both believed in Garrett too much. And for all the approval he’d given all those years ago, Fenris still hated watching when Carver took lyrium.

Carver laughed, dry and bitter as wormwood, and Fenris turned towards him. Fenris didn’t speak but he gave a short huff, low and gravelly.

“Where are we going," Carver asked. “We’re running, but where are we running to?”

Fenris didn’t answer for a moment, and in the silence between them the rain seemed even louder. The roof continued to keep it off them in most places, but in a few spots drops of water fell through, turning the dirt floor of the barn under them into mud. 

“I am headed north, to the Arlathan Forest. You may go wherever you please.”

It made some sense that Fenris was headed to the Arlathan Forest given the route they’d taken from Kirkwall, hugging the coast until they’d reached Ostwick and then heading north. If Carver had been asked to plot their course, he would have stopped by more towns and cities, made it easier to find enough supplies. But, of course, he would have found it much easier than Fenris to pass as any other traveller. Even with the changes the months since leaving Kirkwall had brought- his hair growing long and him finally taking to hiding his markings- Fenris still looked unusual. A big city would have been too great a risk.

Where Fenris was planning to travel wasn’t the part of his words that troubled Carver though. The trouble was that Carver didn’t know what ‘ _wherever he pleased’_ meant. He didn’t know anything about what he wanted any more. He frowned, pulling his torn cloak over himself like a blanket to give him some shelter from the cold.

They sat like that in silence for a while. Fenris reached a hand out of the pane-less window frame, trying to wash the blood out of his hands with the rain. It didn’t quite work, the watered down blood just spreading all over Fenris’ hands, and then gravity pulling it further still. Carver watched as it dripped down Fenris’ arms, reaching almost midway down his forearm before he gave up, pulling his arm back into the barn and just dabbing at it with a rag while they sat in silence.

“I used to fancy you,” Carver said eventually, and even as he said it he wasn’t sure why he was admitting to it. It wasn’t untrue. Back before any of this- before Carver had been a Templar, before Garrett had become Champion, before he and Fenris and the rest of Garrett’s associates had fled Kirkwall- there had been something about Fenris that had enthralled Carver. But that had been years ago, in another time and another life.

“Why?” Fenris’ voice was low and his confusion genuine. He eyed Carver suspiciously, tracing along Carver’s features with his gaze. Carver shrugged, or at least he shrugged the best he could without sending a jolt of pain through his arm.

“I admired you. And you were the first person who respected my choices." Carver shifted his weight, leaning more of it against the barn wall. “It felt like you were the first person to see me as I was, not under my brother’s shadow.”

“You were a brat,” Fenris said, but his words weren’t without affection.  He smiled slightly, corners of his lips curling just slightly upwards, ears twitching. Even like this, with the dirt and sweat and blood of several days' travel and their earlier fight on his face, there was something striking about his face. Something Carver couldn’t look away from. 

In that other time and other life, Carver would not have thought about making the first move. Even in this one, he did not actually do it. But he thought about it, about leaning forward and kissing Fenris. He wondered if there would be any tenderness to it, or if Fenris would kiss him back just as as open mouthed and angry as Carver wanted kissing him to be. He wondered what it would be like to have Fenris’ hands on his thighs, grasping and squeezing with none of the secret gentleness he’d bandaged Carvers’ wound with.  What it would be like if it went further than kissing, if Fenris pushed himself between Carver’s slick thighs, digging his fingernails into tender skin as he pushed them together.

But Carver wasn’t sure _why_ he thought about it, and that gave him pause. Maybe the thought of Fenris fucking him was a gift to a past version of himself, a more innocent and simple version. Maybe it was because ever since they’d left Kirkwall he’d felt like a dead man walking, and part of him hoped this would make him feel a spark of life, the same way visiting the workers at the Pearl used to. He wasn’t quite sure.  So he didn’t do it.

Instead, he laughed. It was partly in response to what Fenris had said and it partly wasn't.

“Yes,” he said. “You’re right. _I was_.”


End file.
